题目内容

Britain’s bosses would have you believe that business in Britain is groaning under red tape and punitive tax levels, inhibiting enterprise and putting British firms at a disadvantage compared with overseas competitors. As usual, reality paints a far different picture from the tawdry image scrawled by the CBI and Tory frontbenchers. Not only do British businesses pay lower levels of corporation tax than their counterparts abroad but they benefit from the most savage legal hamstringing of trade unionism. But boardroom fat cats in Britain have one further advantage over their competitors, which is their total inability to feel any sense of shame. The relatively poor performance since the 1990s of pension investment funds, overseen by the top companies themselves, has brought about a wide-ranging cull of occupational pension schemes. Final salary schemes have been axed in favour of money purchase or have been barred to new employees and, in many companies, staff have been told that they will have to increase pensions fund payments to ensure previously guaranteed benefits. At a time when the government has been deliberately running down the value of the state retirement pension and driving pensioners towards means-tested benefits, the increasingly shaky nature of occupational schemes has brought about higher levels of insecurity among working people. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. There is a silver lining. Unfortunately, that silver lining doesn’t shine too brightly outside the corridors of corporate power, where directors are doing what they are best at--looking after number one. Bosses are not only slurping up huge salaries, each-way bonuses and golden parachutes. They have also, as TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says, got "their snouts in a pensions trough." If having contributions worth one-thirtieth of their salary each year paid into a pension scheme is good enough for directors, why do most workers only receive one-sixtieth And if companies only donate 6 per cent of an employee’s salary for money purchase schemes, why do they give 20~30 per cent for directors’ schemes The answer, which will be no secret to many trade Unionists, is that we live in a class divided society in which big business and the rich call the shots. The Child Poverty Action Group revelation that Britain also has the worst regional social inequality in the industrialised world--second only to Mexico--illustrates how fatuous are claims that this country enjoys social justice and opportunities for all. The stark facts of inequality, Based on class, gender, age and race, that are outlined in the CPAG Poverty book ought to dictate a new government approach to tackling poverty. Inequality and poverty cannot be tackled by allowing Big business and the rich to dodge their responsibilities to society and to use their positions of power to seize the lion’s share. What does the author imply by "There is a silver lining. "(Par

A. 6)A. A gloomy future is awaiting the working people.B. Employees’ concern over the schemes is unwarranted.C. There is also something positive for the employees.D. Directors don’t care sufficiently for the employees’ benefits.

查看答案
更多问题

In October 2002, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank (1) a new electronic market (www. gs. com/econderivs) for economic indices that (2) substantial economic risks, such as nonfarm payroll (a measure of job availability) and retail sales. This new market was made possible by a (3) trading technology, developed by Longitude, a New York company providing software for financial markets, (4) the Parimutuel Digital Call Auction. This is "digital" (5) of a digital option: ie, it pays out only if an underlying index lies in a narrow, discrete range. In effect, Longitude has created a horse race, where each "horse" wins if and (6) the specified index falls in a specified range. By creating horses for every possible (7) of the index, and allowing people to bet (8) any number of runners, the company has produced a liquid integrated electronic market for a wide array of options on economic indices.Ten years ago it was (9) impossible to make use of electronic information about home values. Now, mortgage lenders have online automated valuation models that allow them to estimate values and to (10) the risk in their portfolios. This has led to a proliferation of types of home loan, some of (11) have improved risk-management characteristics.We are also beginning to see new kinds of (12) for homes, which will make it possible to protect the value of (13) , for most people, is the single most important (14) of their wealth. The Yale University-Neighbourhood Reinvestment Corporation programme, (15) last year in the city of Syracuse, in New York State, may be a model for home-equity insurance policies that (16) sophisticated economic indices of house prices to define the (17) of the policy. Electronic futures markets that are based on econometric indices of house prices by city, already begun by City Index and IG Index in Britain and now (18) developed in the United States, will enable home-equity insurers to hedge the risks that they acquire by writing these policies.These examples are not impressive successes yet. But they (19) as early precursors of a technology that should one day help us to deal with the massive risks of inequality that (20) will beset us in coming years. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on Answer Sheet 1.16()

A. look to
B. set up
C. lay down
D. rely on

In October 2002, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank (1) a new electronic market (www. gs. com/econderivs) for economic indices that (2) substantial economic risks, such as nonfarm payroll (a measure of job availability) and retail sales. This new market was made possible by a (3) trading technology, developed by Longitude, a New York company providing software for financial markets, (4) the Parimutuel Digital Call Auction. This is "digital" (5) of a digital option: ie, it pays out only if an underlying index lies in a narrow, discrete range. In effect, Longitude has created a horse race, where each "horse" wins if and (6) the specified index falls in a specified range. By creating horses for every possible (7) of the index, and allowing people to bet (8) any number of runners, the company has produced a liquid integrated electronic market for a wide array of options on economic indices.Ten years ago it was (9) impossible to make use of electronic information about home values. Now, mortgage lenders have online automated valuation models that allow them to estimate values and to (10) the risk in their portfolios. This has led to a proliferation of types of home loan, some of (11) have improved risk-management characteristics.We are also beginning to see new kinds of (12) for homes, which will make it possible to protect the value of (13) , for most people, is the single most important (14) of their wealth. The Yale University-Neighbourhood Reinvestment Corporation programme, (15) last year in the city of Syracuse, in New York State, may be a model for home-equity insurance policies that (16) sophisticated economic indices of house prices to define the (17) of the policy. Electronic futures markets that are based on econometric indices of house prices by city, already begun by City Index and IG Index in Britain and now (18) developed in the United States, will enable home-equity insurers to hedge the risks that they acquire by writing these policies.These examples are not impressive successes yet. But they (19) as early precursors of a technology that should one day help us to deal with the massive risks of inequality that (20) will beset us in coming years. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on Answer Sheet 1.12()

A. management
B. insurance
C. security
D. techonology

儿童生长发育所需要的脂肪酸应该小于成人。( )

A. 对
B. 错

动物、植物性食物混合食用比单纯植物混合要好。( )

A. 对
B. 错

答案查题题库